Yet Jacqueline, like many people at 66, is at a point in her life where she is considering retirement. And she's concerned that the assets she's worked so hard for are not earning as much as they can.

In short, when Jacqueline hangs up her white nursing uniform in a few years, she doesn't want to forego her comfortable lifestyle or security.

''I feel like I need to rearrange my savings to get the best rate of interest,'' she said recently. ''And I want to have enough for something special, like a trip to Europe.''

David Stokes, a certified financial planner with Shafe, Stokes & Co. Inc. in Maitland, met with Jacqueline to map out a strategy for beefing up her investment returns. Also commenting on her situation was Charles Shafe, another financial planner and Stoke's partner.

Just a cursory glance at Jacqueline's finances convinced the men that she had been very frugal. Jacqueline has avoided the credit-card trap and currently has no debt. Stokes and Shafe, therefore, could devise a plan for Jacqueline that did not focus, as many plans do, on digging her out of a morass of red ink.

''What you really have going for you is zero debt,'' said Shafe. ''In that respect, you are ideally positioned.''

Stokes concurred, adding that the goal of the planners was to make Jacqueline's fiscal conservatism pay off.

''Because she has worked so hard to get where she is, we want to make her assets work a little harder for her,'' Stokes said.

Jacqueline's assets are valued at $64,770. They include a one-bedroom condominium, which has been appraised at $29,000; a 1983 Ford Ranger truck, worth $2,900; and $5,000 in personal property.

Additionally, she has $27,870 in fixed-income and growth assets, which include checking and money-market accounts, certificates of deposit, life insurance, common stocks and mutual funds.

This year, Jacqueline will earn $7,900 at her part-time job as a registered nurse at the Mayflower Retirement Community in Winter Park. She also will receive about $5,200 from Social Security. Her current savings and investments earn $1,817 a year.

Together, the three sources give her an average monthly income of $1,243.

Her living expenses, which include condominium association dues, insurance premiums and food, are $680 a month.

To improve Jacqueline's income, the planners zeroed in on her investments, which give her an average rate of return of 6.52 percent, or about $1,817 a year. Neither planner felt that return was sufficient, because taxes and inflation would erode most of it.

''She's left with only about a 1 percent return,'' Stokes said. ''In order to get her income up, we need to shift from lower-yielding to higher-yielding accounts.''

The two arrived at a plan where Jacqueline could reinvest money she now has in CDs and other conservative vehicles to increase her returns by more than 1 1/2 times - from $1,817 to $3,067 annually.

They suggested Jacqueline also reinvest money from her life insurance policy, which has a cash value of about $4,000 and a death benefit of $7,000.

''At the time she bought this, it was a good thing for her to have,'' Stokes said. ''But as you get older, sometimes you need to re-evaluate your life insurance.''

The expenses the life insurance might have paid for, such as her funeral and burial, can easily be covered now by her estate, both men said.

They suggested cashing in the policy and reinvesting the $4,000. Shafe cautioned, however, that some of the recommended investments were less predictable than the conservative CDs and money-market funds she now holds.

A corporate bond fund they suggested, for instance, is invested primarily in junk bonds, which are high-risk, high-yield securities.

The fund has an estimated annual yield of 17 percent, more than double the best yielding bond Jacqueline now has. It is a riskier investment, although the bond default rate averages only 4 percent on the fund holdings, Stokes said.

''This is high-quality junk,'' he said. ''We don't advise investing in junk bonds on an individual basis, but as a fund, the risk-reward ratio is much better.''

Also recommended to Jacqueline was a U.S. government bond fund that averaged a return of 9.5 percent in the most recent year.

Stokes and Shafe said Jacqueline had wisely invested in so-called ''Medigap'' insurance, which covers the medical expenses that the government's Medicare program does not. The insurance costs Jacqueline $816 annually.

They suggested Jacqueline go further, because she said she did not want to burden her children or grandchildren should she become ill or unable to care for herself.

The planners suggested she buy a ''long-term care'' insurance policy that would cover a nursing home stay. The policy would cost $542 annually and would pay a benefit of $50 a day after a 100-day waiting period. The daily benefit is adjusted to follow the cost of living.

Jacqueline said she'd strongly consider the plan suggested by Stokes and Shafe. ''I'm a Libra, so I weigh everything. Everything has to be in balance,'' she said.

She admits the most of her financial planning, to date, has been of one variety. ''About the only I ever planned,'' Jacqueline said, ''is not to be in debt.''